Moby Cock: A Parody
by The Cheshire Cheese
Summary: Eager for inspiration, aspiring writer Ichabod joins Captain Ahole and his band of misfits aboard the Peapod, on a wild goose-chase across the American Prairie. Their target? An eleven-foot-tall, mutant, wild rooster, recognizable by his blinding-white plumage...the legendary Moby Cock. (Written as a final project for a college course on Melville.)
1. The Chowder Inn

**This parody was originally written about two years ago, for the final project of a course on Herman Melville. Somehow, this spoof was rewarded with a passing grade, rather than being thrown out of the school onto my ass. **

**This story contains a lot of politically incorrect humor. If anyone is gay, has ADD, or is any kind of cultural minority, I apologize in advance. Do know that all jokes targeted at the afore mentioned groups are just that-jokes. **

**You may need to be familiar with the book "Moby Dick" to find this parody funny. But for goodness sake, don't put yourself through that _just_ to read this parody! I don't want your mental breakdown on my conscience. **

**Lastly, if Herman Melville's ghost is reading this, I hope he doesn't sue me for this parody. I respect what an enormous undertaking it must have been to write "Moby Dick," and how ahead of its time it was in its messages. (It was still a bit of a torture to read though.) **

**I do not own "Moby Dick."**

* * *

**CHAPTER 1: The Chowder Inn**

* * *

Call me Ichabod. Please. Everyone thinks they're being clever by calling me "Ichabod Crane," or "Itchy," but it's not clever. It's weird and annoying.

Some time ago, never mind how long, I decided see the grassy part of the world. And by "decided" I mean I was unemployed, and the only person who would even glance at my resume was an eccentric ex-naval captain, who was hiring hands for a hunting trip across Kansas, to catch prairie fowl. My job would take place aboard a Duck (you know, those boats with wheels that you can take on land and on the river, like they have at Wisconsin Dells, and then when the tour is over the tour guide makes that lame joke, "Now you've looked out the rear end of a duck!"—but I digress). I admit I hadn't had much experience either hunting or working aboard a ship, at the time. I was a writer, and had just recently lost my job at the local newspaper—for reasons I'll never be able to fathom. Those dry journalists don't use nearly enough words in their articles; I was merely trying to help, and they would have benefited greatly from my advice. I guess they didn't understand my genius. But I'd show them. I intended to write about my experiences aboard Captain Ahole's ship, and once it became a hit, they'd be begging me to come back and teach them how to write as elegantly as I could.

I looked forward to my new job, for who doesn't love a chance to see the prairie? After all, whenever a great artist wishes to paint a landscape, and has already done mountains and rivers and the like and has utterly run out of ideas, what is always his backup plan? Why, the grassy plains! Where do all of the most artistic crop circles pop up—the woods? The mountains? No sir, in the grassy farmlands! Why even Disney, after using up the forest, the jungle, and the ocean for the settings of their talking-animal movies, finally set one story in the grasslands of Africa, and what do you know, "The Lion King" was a huge hit! Even spawned a Broadway musical! I saw that play once in Milwaukee, and it was a _mind job_, I tell you. I've never seen such intense colors and designs anywhere—except that time when I still worked as an editor, and my typewriter had been given a fresh ink ribbon. You take one whiff of that stuff baby, and BOOM, you're higher than a class of second-graders on Ritalin—

Oh dear me, _that's_ what I had forgotten! My Ritalin!

A thousand pardons my dear reader. You see, when I don't remember to take my Ritalin before narrating a story, I can go off on all sorts of odd tangents, and then no one has any idea what I'm talking about (not even myself sometimes!). I made a mental note to pick up my meds before stepping aboard the _Peapod_. I was sure that my readers would not want me going on tangents like that throughout the entire story! This would be a very important story to tell. Someone might die, after all. And I'd probably learn some very important moral lesson that I needed to pass on to my readers. And in that case, I should certainly want to be narrating the clearest, most coherent way possible.

Now then. I found myself at the river port where the _Peapod_—our boat—would board the next day. I would have to find a place to spend the night here, in the town of McNugget. My choices were "The Crossed Harpoons," which looked far too expensive; "The Cuttlefish," where someone was having a very rowdy wedding or bar-mitzvah; and a "Days Inn," with an outdoor pool the size of a bathtub that had a layer of dead insects floating in the water. Not the best selection. Just then a fourth building caught my eye. An old looking building, from which swung a half rotted wooden sign which read: "The Chowder Inn." It was in about the same condition as the "Days Inn," which meant that I could afford it, and because it _wasn't _the "Days Inn," it would be better than just sleeping on the sidewalk. I felt an ominous presence as I approached the building, with a tad of foreboding and a side of eeriness. I pocketed my thesaurus (for I knew this would be a long story, and if I didn't save some adjectives for later, I'd run out), and stepped inside.

The "Chowder" was your average inn, complete with dim lighting and filled with gruff looking sailors sporting eye patches and striped shirts. It looked like a typical hangout for ruffians, and as I stepped into the lobby I almost instantly felt like more of a badass. Like a cowboy, I swaggered into the bar, imagining what could happen in here. I pictured being confronted by some alien bounty hunter, who was after a price that my ex-employers from the editing room had put on my head…and just as he's about to shoot me, I say some witty one-liner and then blow him away with my blaster! Or maybe I'd just get a drink at the bar, where I'd meet some foreign refugees running from Nazis, who needed to obtain exit visas so they could escape to the safety of the Americas—and one of them would be a hot French babe desperate for my help. (Yes, I know I was already in America, but I wasn't thinking of that at the time.) The possibilities were endless.

"Sir? Hello?"

I yelped like a little girl and jumped a little. The innkeeper behind the desk had startled me. I composed myself, and he continued.

"Like I said, we don't have any empty rooms left. But if you want, you can share a room with the harpooner on the second floor."

I thought it over. I don't generally like sleeping two to a bed. I had to share the bottom of the bunk bed with my brother Todd for a whole year when I was ten years old, after we accidentally set fire to the top bunk while we were playing campfire with Dad's lighter. Todd always hogged all the blankets, plus he was like an octopus in his slept. And that was with a family member. I didn't want to begin to think about how awkward all of that would be with a total stranger.

"Otherwise," the innkeeper said, "You can always just sleep on the bench there."

"I'll give that a try." I said, relieved to have another option.

He gave me a strange look. "Well actually I was being sarcastic. But I guess if you really want to, suit yourself."

I tried to make myself comfortable on the bench, ignoring the noise of the other customers at the bar, who were watching the football game on TV. It was much harder to get sleep here than I'd thought. The bench was too hard in most places, and too sticky in others. I tried to shift around, but then found that my pants had become stuck to the bench with A.B.C. gum. They were nice pants, too, dang it. While I sat there, trying to peel gum off the back of my slacks, a shadow suddenly loomed over me, and before I had time to react a 300-pound Wisconsinite in a Green Bay Packers jersey and a cheese-head plopped himself on the bench to get a better view of the game. As I struggled to escape the dark smothering mass, I felt another odd sense of foreboding, as if this were some sign from a higher power that a death by some gigantic creature awaited me in the near future.

Somehow, by the mercy of that higher power, I was allowed to claw free of the death trap and breathe the fresh air again. I promptly returned to the front desk and asked, "How about that harpooner?"

The harpooner wasn't in the room when I arrived, and I really didn't feel like waiting for him. Fighting for your life under what feels like the weight of a blue whale takes a lot out of you. So I climbed into the bed. For two wonderful hours, I dreamed about my new mission aboard the _Peapod_. I bravely defending the ship by firing lasers at the attacking Tie Fighters that swooped down from overhead, and used my revolver to shoot the invading Nazis that swung aboard our ship, so that the sexy French woman who totally digged me could escape to safety.

My dreams were interrupted around midnight, when the door creaked opened. The harpooner had returned to our room. Peeking from under the sheets, I saw he was a rather tanned fellow. Like, solid brown. Well, I told myself, this was Kansas after all. I supposed working on a farm in the sun all day would do that to even the palest person. But wait, he was a harpooner, not a farmer... Okay, so he was out harpooning whales or giant squids in the hot Atlantic Ocean, and that gave him his tan.

_What terrible bruises_, I thought looking at his arms and face. I had never seen bruises that shade of yellow and purple on anyone before. In fact, they didn't look like bruises at all. Maybe, I reasoned, maybe the sun just did that to your skin, in certain parts of the world. It made sense. The sun tans you so much that you get _so_ brown, that there aren't enough brown coloring chemicals left for your skin to use up, so instead it starts trying other colors like purple and yellow…all right, I was grasping. He was probably just a student from some art school, who got himself covered in wacky colored paint while working on the set of some play based on a Dr. Seuss book.

Then the harpooner turned around, and I was able for the first time to see his face. And that was when the terrifying realization sank in…

_It_

_ was_

_ a _

_ black_

_ guy! _

With a shaking hand I yanked the covers over my head. My fantasies of being a rugged space pirate and a Nazi-killing patriot had flown out the window faster than my plans for Prom Night after Ma saw my last report card ("_Ichabod, how the hell do you fail shop class?!_"). His tan, his facial features, his tattoos, his shaved head, it all came together now. I was sharing a room with an African, a cannibal!

Now, this must seem very ignorant of me. But you see, I had never met such a person in person before (was that a bit redundant?). I was extremely young at the time, and had grown up unusually sheltered. Grandpa Willis had told me _his_ version about what those of African heritage were like. How they cooked you in a spigot over a cauldron, and then ate you in a pie with gravy and cranberry sauce. How they shrank your head, and then hung it as a trophy over their doors and Christmas trees. Dear god, to spend all of December hanging on a tree, having to listen to little brats bawl underneath me about how they didn't get the exact race car or Barbie doll that they wanted…and to then spend the other eleven months of the year in a box in the basement, suffocating in Styrofoam peanuts... I whimpered as the cannibal approached the bed.

"Who's there?!" He looked around the room wildly, ready to strike with his harpoon.

With his keen native tracking skills, he had heard my barely audible whimper.

Or maybe it was when I started screaming, "Take my wallet! Take whatever you want, just please don't cook me Mr. Cannibal! I don't want to be a pie—I don't like gravy!" (I don't know why the film _Chicken Run_ came to my mind in that moment of panic, but, well, there it is.)

"What's going on here?" the innkeeper burst into the room.

I pointed a shaking finger at the cannibal. "HE'S GONNA EAT ME!"

The innkeeper laughed. "Relax, mate. Old Queerqueg here wouldn't hurt a fly. You just startled him, is all. Go back to sleep, both of you."

I looked from the innkeeper, and back to the African—Mr. Queerqueg. The cannibal was staring at me as if I was from outer space. Heh, now there was a funny thought. Me, the alien from outer space, and him, the ordinary Earthling. And that's when I realized it. It was all a matter of perspective! For in Queerqueg's mind, it was _I _who was the bizarre alien, sneaking up on him, and _he_ was the ordinary-looking and heroic space pilot, preparing to strike back in self defense. But he wouldn't have to, I decided. From then on, I would treat him like I would any other stranger. Grandpa Willis wouldn't approve of my befriending a non-white person. But on the other hand, that guy called my DragonFoce CDs "Devil music," so what did he know?

I greeted Mr. Queerqueg, and he smiled and greeted me in return. He then invited me to share a smoke with him. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Queerqueg took out a small, funny-looking glass idol shaped like an Easter Island head, and done up in colorful designs like an Easter egg. He introduced his idol to me as Aqua-Buda Man. He filled Aqua-Buda Man with some earthy plants, and we took turns inhaling the smoke from a long tube that extended from Aqua-Buda Man's blue lips. And as I lay back down to sleep next to my new friend, I looked up at the ceiling and smiled. The colors I saw up there outdid "The Lion King" _and_ my ink ribbon back home by a long shot.


	2. Father Maple's Sermon

**CHAPTER 2: Father Maple's Sermon**

* * *

I slept peacefully the rest of the night, my entertaining dreams picking right back up as if they hadn't been interrupted. My dreams felt so real, that I could have sworn I was actually wrapped tightly in the arms of a passionate lover. But when the sunlight streamed in from the window and awoke me, I found myself being cuddled not by a space babe in a gold slave bikini, but by none other than my new friend Queerqueg. You would have thought that I was his wife. I smiled to myself, and I pushed his arm off of me. So, Queerqueg had been having dreams of his own galactic princess. Though a white man and a cannibal, we weren't so different after all.

Now that I was over my fear of Queerqueg, I found myself fascinated by his strange appearance and tendencies. His colorful tattoos covered his entire body. He was all done up like the Mystery Machine, with swirling designs of stars, peace symbols, and tropical fish. Originating from the faraway and exotic land of San Francisco, Queerqueg had left home to explore the rest of the world. Though he would always have a special place in his heart for California, he was also curious to learn about the civilized world. I suggested that he join me aboard the _Peapod_, as the prairie would give him a great change of scenery from urban California.

Queerqueg did well to blend in, at least in some ways. He dressed like any ordinary guy, in shorts and a tank top, and behaved like any civilized man. He did stand out a bit with his tattoos and stereotypical African accent (his parents had immigrated to San Francisco before he was born, originally coming from Ethiopia, or Madagascar or someplace). But otherwise, the only hint that he was from abroad was his hunting harpoon, which he insisted on carrying with him everywhere, and would take with him aboard the _Peapod_ for our prairie hunt. He used that harpoon for everything. He speared up pancakes and bacon from across the breakfast table with it; he shaved with it; used it to change the channel when someone needed help to reach the TV that hung from the inn's ceiling.

After checking out of the "Chowder Inn," Queerqueg and I still had several hours to kill before the _Peapod_ boarded. We happened to pass by a chapel, which would be starting its Sunday service in a few minutes. Queerqueg expressed interest, as he had never been to a church service before.

_Well_, I thought, _Queerqueg allowed me to worship his idol with him last night, didn't he?_ _So now I should return the favor. _

"Sure," I told my friend. "Let's check it out."

True, I myself didn't attend church often. The last time I could even remember going was when my aunt got married, where I helped hand out the rice for everyone to throw at the end, and I'm not sure if that really counts. But surely a church service was just some singing and a little sermon, right? It'd be like Christmas caroling, no sweat.

The priest stood by the door, greeting everyone who entered with a smile. When Queerqueg and I approached, he was momentarily frozen. His wide eyes scanned the psychedelic tattoos that covered Queerqueg's face, arms and legs, then looked between the two of us. After a moment he caught himself, and smiled politely.

"Welcome," he shook our hands. "I'm Father Maple, and I'm glad you could join us."

We got a few more stares as we made our way into the pews. An old lady crossed herself as we walked by. There were some angry whispers as Father Maple took his place in front of the congregation. The priest glared at one whisperer and replied, "You're right, Farmer Wilson, it is a sin. The queers will just have to sit with the cheaters, liars, and gluttons; make room everyone!"

_Queers? _

"Woa woa," I held up my hands. "It's nothing like that. Queerqueg here's just a pal—"

Father Maple waved his hand. "No need to worry, Sir. I make no judgments about your lifestyle. Have a seat!"

Great. How embarrassing. And Poor Queerqueg. He probably hadn't been expecting to be taken that way either. It wasn't his fault that his homeland valued tattoo designs that looked like a Pride Parade. Unless that little slumber party of ours had any significance…

My thoughts were interrupted when the priest began his sermon.

"Today," Father Maple began, "I will recount to you a tale from our Holy Bible. It is a tale of…"

_Something happy?_ I thought, hopefully.

"…SIN!"

Everyone jumped a little.

"_Guilt! Repentance_, and _salvation_! I am speaking to you about the tale of Jonah and the Whale!"

Oh good! I loved this story! Or at least the "Veggie Tales" version, anyway. I listened eagerly as Father Maple recounted Jonah's attempt to flee from God, and ignore his duty to warn the citizens of Nineveh to repent for their sins. I listened, and waited for my favorite characters to come up. And I waited. The sermon started at nine in the morning; by eleven I was getting fidgety. More than once Queerqueg had to shoulder me with his harpoon to tell me to stop tapping my foot or fingers impatiently. It was almost noon when I finally realized that the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything were not going to appear in Father Maple's version of Jonah's story.

Finally, the entire church chimed, "Amen!" and the service was over.

"Dat was interesting." Queerqueg mused.

I shrugged. "I liked it better when it was acted out by cucumbers and carrots." Seeing Queerqueg was looking at me strangely, I explained, "I prefer visuals when hearing a story."

He still seemed confused.

Before leaving the building, we stopped to chat with some of the churchgoers. Apparently we were not the only outsiders who had stopped by for the service. We met a bearded man who was clearly Jewish, complete with the black hat and curls hanging from each side of his face.

"Rabbi Syrup," he smiled, shaking our hands. "Father Maple here's a good friend of mine."

When we explained that we'd come to the service out of curiosity, Rabbi Syrup invited us to a service of his own, at his synagogue.

"What would that be like?" I asked casually, trying not to let my nervousness show.

"Well," Rabbi Syrup gave it some thought. "As it happens, this week is a High Holiday for us. It'd be a service, like this one," _Oh great_, I thought. "But it would last the entire day. And we'll be fasting until sundown, so we can focus on all of the sins we've committed over the last year."

"Will anyone be telling stories?" Queerqueg asked.

"Why yes!" The rabbi's face light up. "As a matter of fact, the holiday of Yom Kippor centers _entirely_ on the story of Jonah and the Wha—"

The rabbi had not even finished his sentence when Queerqueg I bolted out the door, down the walkway, and across the street.

* * *

**A/N: Just a little fact I feel like sharing. Since I'm Jewish, I found the chapter "Father Mapple's Sermon" hilariously ironic. The Jews do, in fact, have an entire holiday, where we fast and listen to tortuously long sermons about Jonah and the Whale. After reading Ishmael and Queequeg's reaction to having to sit through one Christian sermon about this story, I just had to entertain how they'd react to learning about Yom Kippur.  
**


	3. The Duck

**CHAPTER 3: The Duck**

* * *

The shore of the river was entirely parked with sailboats and fishing boats. In all the hustle and bustle, it was no wonder that Queerqueg and I were having trouble locating the _Peapod._ We tried asking several people for directions, but no one knew anything about the Peapod or Captain Ahole. Half the time, when we mentioned a "Duck," the person would point to a flock of mallards in the water, confused.

"How about dose fellows?" Queerqueg asked me.

He was pointing, with his harpoon, to a pair of sailors loading cargo onto what looked like a large, dark green fishing boat. The two men were in some kind of argument. They grumbled insults like "scallywag" and "scurvy dog" to each other, while they hauled aboard wooden chests with pearls and jeweled chains sticking out from under the lids. They reminded me of the sailors at the "Chowder's Inn," with their bandanas and striped shirts. One of them even had an eye-patch. We waved them down as we ran up to the end of the dock.

"Excuse me," I said, "You gentlemen look like you know your way around the dock better than most,"

The men suddenly exchanged nervous glances.

"What's that s'posed ta mean?" one of them snapped, while the other's hand crept slowly to the cutlass on his belt.

"You're sailors, I mean." I said quickly. "Aren't you?" I straightened my tie nervously. "I mean, you seemed like nice, peaceful sailors, who might know this place better than we would,"

A wave of relief came across their faces.

"Aye, that we be matey," the man with the eye-patch said. "Peaceful sailors."

The other nodded. "Peaceful _law-abiding_ sailors, aye."

"You sailors sure talk funny," Queerqueg commented.

I stomped on his foot. Annoyed, he hit me back with the handle of his harpoon.

"Well yes," the first sailor said, in response to Queerqueg. "Everyone talks that way where we come from. See my friend and I here, we be, ah, _Quakers_. Quakers, yes. Right?" he turned to his companion.

The other nodded. "Arr—I mean, Aye. Quakers, yup."

I was in a hurry to get this conversation done with and be out of here. Quakers my foot. I may have been scatter-brained, but even I could tell which way the wind was blowing.

"Listen, we're just trying to find the _Peapod_." I explained. "It's a Duck. You know, not the bird. But like the boat with wheels, that can go on land and water,"

"Like at Wisconsin Dells!" the first "Quaker" said.

"Yeah," said the other. "And then when the tour's over, the tour guide makes that funny joke, 'Now you've looked out the rear end of a duck!'"

We all said the last part together, the "Quakers" laughing, and me sounding annoyed.

"Yeah," I sighed. "That's the one. You know where it is?"

The sailor was silent a moment. "Well ah,"

"Hey," Queerqueg pointed to the side of the boat, with his harpoon. "That say _Peapod_, right dere."

"Why yes, yes it does!" the sailor with the eye-patch said. "This be yer _Peapod,_ right here. We're just, ah, loading it up for our old friend. Great man, Captain Ahole."

I stifled a snort. "Great man, maybe. Not a great name."

Queerqueg and I giggled.

The sailor frowned. "Now see here. Ahole didn't choose his own name, mate. His navy buddies chose it for him. And he only let it stick cuz it was less embarrassing than his real name. But don't you go judging Captian Ahole. He's had it rough, e'er since that accursed cock nibbled off his leg."

Queerqueg and I stopped laughing, and stared.

"What?" we finally asked, in unison.

"Aaah, so ye haven't heard the tale of Captain Ahole and the Great White?"

We shook our heads.

"Well," the pirate with the eye-patch began dramatically. "Ahole's story begins on a farm, in—"

"Ooo, can I tell this one?" the other sailor begged.

"How about, I tell them about Ahole, and you tell 'em about the cock."

"The _what_?" I asked.

"Moby Cock," the sailor with two eyes said, in a low voice. He leaned in closely to us. "There's a wild prairie chicken, they say, what roams these grasslands. A monster of a bird, over ten feet tall! Some say he's a radioactive mutant, escaped from a factory farm that sat too close to a polluted river. Others say he's prehistoric, the last living velociraptor on Earth."

Eye-patch nodded. "Those things did have feathers, you know. Didn't look nothin' like in 'Jurassic Park.' If you see the pictures they got in books now, they look like giant monster chickens, no lie!"

The other sailor continued. "He's got talons like a raptor, all right. And a beak that can pierce through concrete. He won't just peck out your eyes; he'll stab right though your sockets and suck out your brains, like a hummingbird does nectar. He can outrun a racecar, and some even swear they've seen him fly. When he makes his rooster call in the morning, it's like a thousand nails on a giant chalkboard. This ain't no fowl from the natural world, understand. Moby Cock hatched from under Satan's rump, down in the deepest pits of Hell. And when he's roamin' the prairie in search o' feed, ye can always spot him by his pearly white plumage."

Queerqueg and I nodded slowly.

"Huh," I said thoughtfully. "So, Captain Ahole lost a leg to a feathery velociraptor. Or a radioactive rooster."

"That's right." The one-eyed pirate said. "It was right after Ahole had returned from serving in the navy. Ma and Pa wanted him home on the farm, so they could celebrate his new promotion to captain. Ahole got together with a bunch of his mates, and they went out to hunt some wild game for dinner that night. They were hoping to find a nice, fat chicken for supper, maybe a turkey if they were lucky. Instead, they found Moby Cock." He signed heavily. "They should've left it alone. Just turned around, and found some nice, normal prairie chickens for dinner. But the fools were excited, and their judgment clouded with eggnog. Thought they'd show what men they were, if they'd bring back that giant cock's head to hang on their wall. They thought they could take the beast down, if they ambushed him from all sides. But turned out that shooting the rooster just made him mad.

"That's when poor Ahole's leg became chicken feed. Twelve men had gone out hunting that night, and four of them came back. Now Ahole wears a wooden timber, carved from a pillar of wood that used to hold up a chicken coop on the family farm."

The second pirate chimed in, "Yeah, don't mention anything about his leg when you see him. He likes to go on these rants…"

"Great," I muttered. "Sounds like this'll be a swell voyage."

"What're you worrying about?" the sailor asked. "You've nothing to fear from Captain Ahole. I mean, sure, he can be a bit of a, you know, A-hole. And his mind may've gone out the window for a short spell, when he was in the hospital with his bleeding stump after the chicken incident. But his senses flew right back home once the painkillers wore off. Ahole's sound as a pound now, trust me."

"Any idea when de captain and rest of de crew will be arriving?" Queerqueg asked, changing the subject.

"Not too long," the eye-patch guy said checking his watch. "Maybe half an hour at the most."

"Enough time to get some lunch then," I stuck my hands in my pockets. "Come on Queerqueg. There's a McDonalds' down there. Let's go."

As we made our way down the dock, we heard a familiar ringing, that sounded very out of place in the middle of September. Standing just at the front of the dock, on the lakeshore, was a Salvation Army Santa with a charity stand, ringing a little bell. He had apparently arrived set up his charity stand while we'd been talking with the sailors. Shrugging, I rummaged through my pockets for some change.

"Getting an early start this year?" I asked the Santa, as I dropped my coins into the charity slot.

The Santa stared down at us, with old, knowing eyes. His red hat cast a dark shadow over his face. Finally, he said slowly, "An early start…yes. And what of you two? Getting started on a long voyage?"

"That's what people come to a boat dock for, isn't it?" I said, now slightly annoyed. It always bugs the hell out of me when people try to sound all mysterious and prophetic by "predicting" stuff that a pre-kindergartener could've figured out.

The Santa nodded. "Yes, a voyage with Captain Ahole. A perilous voyage, it will be for you."

"I didn't know Chris Cringle was in the business of fortune telling," I said.

"My name ain't really Chris Cringle," he whispered, raising the puffball end of his hat out of his face. "This here's just a costume."

"Oh my god. Are you gonna tell me that Mickey Mouse isn't real either? My childhood is shattered! Come on Queerqueg, let's—"

"My name," the stranger said in a voice barely above a whisper, "Is Elijah."

Queerqueg was listening intently. I was less impressed.

"_Elijah_?" I chuckled. "Isn't it a bit early for you to be making prophecies,_ Elijah_? Hanukkah ain't till December you know. The rabbi in this town told us you guys were just getting ready for your autumn high holidays."

Elijah gave a short laugh. "Very funny. How you know so much about Hanukkah? You Jewish?"

"No," I answered, "But I once dated a Jewish girl, so I learned a bit about it."

I found myself thinking of fonder times. Ah, Rachel Cohen, my first and last shot at getting laid during my entire high school career. She said she found my weird tangents and inattentiveness "cute." Unfortunately, we were just getting cozy on the couch when Grandpa Willis came in and chased her out, ranting about the "Jewish conspiracy" or something. By the time I'd tracked her down a week or so later to apologize, she'd already been swept off her feet by a chemistry geek named Kyle. And when your girlfriend has dumped you for a higher class of nerd, you know you're pathetic.

"Anything down there about your souls?"

I shook my head. "_What?_!"

Elijah gestured towards us with his little bell. "Or maybe you haven't got any. Maybe none of us has any," he lightly waved his bell around the whole dock. "A soul's a sort of fifth wheel to a wagon, after all. You know, like a wagon needs a fifth wheel. Like a fish needs roller skates."

I turned to see if Queerqueg was following any of this. He was scratching his head with his harpoon, staring at Elijah with a look of pure confusion.

"You haven't seen Old Thunder yet, have you?" Elijah eyed us carefully.

"Old who?" Queerqueg asked.

_My god,_ I thought, _this guy is worse with non-sequitors than I am_. I wondered if this was how Queerqueg felt, whenever I turned a conversation about the weather or work into a rant about parallel universes, or jelly.

"Old Thunder," Elijah repeated. "Captain Ahole. He's a man of many nicknames. What'd they tell you about him, those—those 'Quakers'?" he did the little quotation-marks gesture with his hands (which looked odd, since he was wearing mittens; it looked like he was Carmel Dancing).

Queerqueg and I looked and each other, and shrugged.

"Not much," I admitted. "They seemed more interested in telling big fish stories about the chicken that bit him, to be honest."

"The chicken, yes. Moby Cock. The Great White." Elijah pointed his bell at us once more, this time more sternly. "Mark this, friends. The White Rooster is a danger to beware of, that's true. But evil wears many different faces, and you never know until it's too late. Captain Ahole ain't called Ahole for nothing."

I'd had enough. "Look, you weirdo. If you've got something to tell us, just spit it out. Otherwise, we'll be on our way."

Elijah slowly straitened up, looking as if he was getting ready to finally tell us what he'd really wanted to talk about. Then, he glanced over our shoulders.

"Afternoon, Captain!" he said, dipping his Santa hat.

Queerqueg and I turned around, and jumped. There he was, towering over us with a snarl. Captain Ahole was old and gnarled, dressed in a blue naval uniform, and a sea captain's hat. He reminded me a bit of Steamboat Willy, but somehow I figured it'd be best not to mention that. Our eyes traveled from the many shimmering metals on his uniform, to the bucked of KFC he held in one hand, and down to his wooden leg.

"Afternoon," he growled to Elijah.

Queerqueg and I smiled politely.

"Pleasure to meet you Captain," I said, trying and failing to keep my voice from cracking nervously.

"Yes, pleasure," Ahole said, not sounding pleased.

"So…" I tried to sound enthusiastic. "Who's ready to catch some pheasants?"

Queerqueg and I waited for Ahole's response. He slowly drew a breaded drumstick from his bucket, and took a vicious bite, like a lion ripping the flesh from a downed howler monkey.

"Not pheasants," he said after swallowing. "Chickens."

After an awkward second of silence, the captain turned to Queerqueg. His eyes traveled up and down his tattooed body, and over to Aqua-Buda Man tucked under his arm. Ahole rolled his eyes and shook his head, then made his way up the dock to the _Peapod_. As he climbed up the ramp to board the Duck, he frowned at the two sailors.

"Who the hell're you?" Ahole demanded.

"Uh," the two sailors looked around nervously.

"Get the hell outta' here!" Ahole waved his half-eaten drumstick at them. "Go commandeer someone else's boat, ye lowlifes!"

Without a word, the two "Quakers" leapt off the Duck and dashed down the dock, not even bothering to grab the treasure chests they'd hauled onboard earlier.

"Well," Queerqueg said, "I don't know about you Ichy, but I'm really ready for lunch now. McDonald's okay?" he gestured towards the restaurant with his harpoon.

"Yeah," I said. "And don't call me Itchy."

"Okay, Mr. Crane," he laughed.

I groaned, and followed him down the dock.


	4. Knights and Squires

**Chapter 4: Knights & Squires**

* * *

The chief mate of the _Peapod_ was Starbuck. Everyone on board agreed that his was by far the coolest name on the ship. (Way cooler than Ichabod, anyway. Thanks, Mom and Dad.) He hoped someday to use it as the name for his own coffee chain, once he got around to starting a business. Starbuck was tall and muscular, in his early thirties; Queerqueg, upon learning that the chief mate was strait, shook his head and said, "Such a _waste_!"

Self-assured and cool-headed, Starbuck was a man with a strict personal code of morals that he tried to stick to always. These included always standing up for the little guy, and never letting the establishment brainwash him into following the crowd. Rarely without his black barrette and never without that big mug of coffee in his hands, Starbuck kept a cool, relaxed attitude towards the voyage, life, and anything it could throw at him. Anytime he saw some injustice aboard the boat—sailors arguing over their share of rum, or hazing the little cabin boy Chip—Starbuck would stare down the bullies behind those dark purple shades he wore, tell them ta chill and back off, then suggest everyone go below deck for a game of "Apples to Apples."

The second mate was Stud. Named for the multiple piercings sprinkled around his ears and face like stars in the Milky Way, he and Starbuck had much in common. Like the fist mate, Stud was laid back and carefree—even more so, in fact. Stud didn't just accept oddballs like Queerqueg and myself; he didn't even seem to notice anything was off about us to begin with. He didn't seem to notice much, period. He sported dark colors and shades like his friend, but while Starbuck's drug of choice was black coffee, Stud's was his pipe. All day, he would have the thing hanging out of his mouth, and leave behind a sweet earthy odor that reminded me of Aqua-Buda Man. Before Stud even stuck his legs into his black-dyed jeans in the morning, he would first stick that pipe in his mouth. And it served him well. When it finally came time to face that great white rooster mano-a-mano, Stud wielded his hunting harpoon freely and casually as a pop-artist lashing out with a paintbrush, sending his art flying into the air in a frenzy of bloody paint and feathers.

The third mate was Flask. Just as Starbuck loved his coffee and Stud his pipe, Flask was never to be seen without his flask of eggnog dangling from his hip. Flask shared none of my curiosity or admiration for the wild animals we were hunting. A Wisconsin "Uppie" by origin, Flask was a skilled hunter and fisherman. He considered Moby Cock and all his feathery relatives to be no more than pests, and took great pleasure in using them for target practice with his rifle. Still, he had his virtues. After spending half the day on deck having mellow conversations with the black-clad Starbuck and Stud, it was always a relief to have Flask run up on deck in his plaid shirt and neon orange vest, full of energy and eager to share some new off-color jokes with us.

Just as with the knights of old, each senior officer aboard the duck was granted his own personal squire, an assistant who would be paired up with him and carry the equipment when we split up into small hunting parties.

Starbuck was truly the White Knight of the _Peapod_. He accepted everyone, no matter how bizarre they looked or what they did. It was no surprise then that this funky knight's squire was Queerqueg.

Next was Toledo. A Native American from Ohio, Toledo was an experienced hunter of fowl, and we relied heavily on his advice. He knew, for example, that farm turkeys were stupid enough to stare at a rainy sky with their mouths opened until they drowned, but that wild turkeys were sly sons-of-bitches who might ambush you from the trees. He could hit a speeding hummingbird twenty feet in the air with a bullet or an arrow (granted, there wasn't much point in doing so, as there would be nothing left to bring home but a few feathers once this was done). High cheekbones and large dark eyes, with long shinning black hair, even I myself had to agree when Queerqueg said that this strait guy, too, was, like _such_ a waste, before I smacked myself and hissed, "_Boobs_, I like _boobs_!" Toledo was Stud's squire.

Next came Dingo. He was an enormous, muscular, black dude, who had grown up on a farm wrestling animals as large as pigs and goats into their pens. Dingo could decapitate a chicken with his bare hands. He wore his hair in a thick frizzy Mohawk, in tribute to his wrestling idol, Mr. T. His way with the animals impressed Flask, whose opinion about God's creatures I have already explained to you. Thus, Dingo was Flask's squire.

Finally, there was the cabin boy, Chip. A short black boy from Minnesota, Chip was ten years old, but read tenth grade math books for fun. He had somehow convinced Captain Ahole to allow him to join us, so he could gain experience and conduct interviews for a school research project on the changing climate of the American grasslands. Chip was simultaneously the most adorable and the most irritating thing any of us would encounter during the entire voyage. Although in Ahole's opinion, only the "irritating" part was true.

And there we were, like the Knights of the Round Table, with the _Peapod_ protecting us like the walls of Camelot—but with far less singing, and if instead of King Arthur, the leader was a grumpy old man with a wooden leg—

* * *

"Woa woa, hold the phone," Toledo held up a hand, stopping me in midsentence.

"Huh?" I looked up.

The entire crew, minus Ahole, was sitting in beanbags, in the lower deck of the _Peapod_. It was dusk, and our first hunt of the day was over. The Peapod was parked for the night, miles away from civilization. The small prairie hens we had caught were roasting in the oven.

"So, let me get this straight," Toledo scratched his neck. "I'm Stud's squire?"

"Correct," I nodded.

Toledo pointed around the room. "Queerqueg is Starbuck's squire, Dingo is Flask's, and Chip is…?"

"Captain Ahole's." I said. "And I don't need a squire, because I'm the Dungeon Master."

"Is the captain even playing?" Chip asked.

"Playin' what?" the captain grumbled, from behind the closed door of his office.

"Knights and Squires!" I said. "Only the hottest role-playing game on the shelves!"

"It's like D&D—Dungeons and Dragons," Flask added, between swigs of eggnog. "Only in a King Arthur-type setting, instead of Middle Earth."

"D&D is not set in Middle Earth!" Chip said angrily. "The worlds are completely different! For starters, their elves are _shorter_ than humans, instead of taller; Middle Earth doesn't have any Druids…"

With the exception of Chip's rambling, there was a long stretch of total silence. Finally, the captain barked from behind his door, "_Nerds!_"

"Come on now, Captain," Starbuck called from where he was sprawled out on a tie-dyed beanbag. "You spend all your time cooked up in that little office. Why not join us on a quest?"

"Quest?" the captain's voice sounded through the door. "_Quest_?"

We heard the sound of several bolts being unlocked, and then Ahole swung the door open. His glare swept across the room. "So it's a quest you boys want?"

"Um, yeah." Chip said timidly.

"We can search for the Holy Grail, or Excalibur." I said. "Your pick!"

A grin spread across the captain's face. "I got something better for you."

We all sat up, silent.

"You wanna be like knights?" Ahole strode around our beanbag circle, his wooden leg clopping with every step. "How about a quest to slay the greatest monster this world has ever known?"

"Dragon slaying," I snapped my fingers. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Ahole shook his head. "This beast is worse than any dragon."

We watched him curiously, for he looked not unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up. A huge, howling, monstrous storm, that'll clean away your house and sweep you off to Oz—and not the happy, colorful Oz with the singing munchkins, but the dark, creepy, twisted Oz with that witch who collects people's heads.

"What do ye do when ye see a chicken, men?" Ahole asked.

"Sing out for him!" the crew replied in unison.

Stud laughed and mimed playing his pipe like a guitar, singing "_I don't wanna be a chicken, I don't wanna be a duck, so I'll shake my_…

Ahole silenced Stub with a kick from his wooden leg. "Cut that out ye beatnik!"

"Oy!" Stud jumped back in his beanbag chair.

The captain looked back to the rest of the crew. "Good! And what do ye next, men?"

"Lower away, and after him!" we cried—except Stud.

"He kicked me!" Stud pointed his pipe accusingly at the captain.

"An' I'll do it again till ye shut yer trap, you stoner idiot!" Ahole swung his wooden leg back and forth, occasionally hitting the Stud when the sailor wasn't fast enough to dodge it.

Finally turning back to the crew, Ahole held up something that glistened in the lamp light.

"Look ye!" Ahole held up a shimmering gold coin, the size of a Spanish doubloon. "Ye see this, gents?"

The company leaned close, to get a better look.

Chip adjusted his thick glasses. "That looks like tinfoil."

"Exactly!" Ahole pinched the edge of the coin. "And what do ye think's _under_ the tinfoil, gentlemen?"

He peeled away a chunk of tinfoil, and the crew marveled at the chocolate beneath; it was Hershey's Dark. Ahole replaced the foil wrapping, and rubbed the coin against his jacket, to shine it.

"Whosoever raises me a white rooster that's eight feet tall, with a crooked beak and a wrinkled waddle, whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed menace with three holes punctured in his plumage—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white cock, he shall have a whole chest of these chocolate doubloons!"

The entire crew's eyes lit up with cocoa-lust, and as a man we all cried, "Huzza! Huzzah!"

More and more, the crew became enthused by the captain's speech. Some began to gaze curiously at one another, as if wondering how they themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions. Certain crewmembers examined the coffee or eggnog they were drinking, wondering if maybe that had something to do with it.

"Skin you eyes for him men," Ahole pocketed the coin. "If ye see but a feather, sing out!"

All the while, Toledo, Dingo and Queerqueg seemed to become more and more interested and surprised than the rest, as if the mention of the giant rooster rang a bell for each of them.

"Captain Ahole," Toledo said in an offhand way, "That white rooster wouldn't by any chance be the infamous Moby Cock, would it?"

"Moby Cock? Ye heard of him?" Ahole demanded.

"Does he fan his tail up a bit, as he dives down under the grass?" Toledo asked.

"And his middle talon sticks up, like a velociraptor?" Dingo added.

Frowning, Starbuck asked Stud, "How many eight-foot-tall roosters are roaming this prairie?"

Stud shrugged.

"Captain," Starbuck spoke up. "I've heard of this Moby Cock. But surely that's not the chicken that took your leg off?"

"Who told ye that?" Ahole spun to face Starbuck.

The entire crew glanced around at each other.

Ahole sighed. "Those 'Quakers,' right?" he shook his head. "Idiots. I hang out with them _once _while we're all drunk at Oktoberfest, and now they tell everyone I'm their best mate. But anywho, yes. Moby Cock, that be him. T'was that accursed bird that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. I'll chase him round Kansas, to L.A., to Timbuktu before I give up! This is what ye have shipped for, men. To chase that white monster on the grass and on the river, over all sides of the Earth,"

Chip protested softly, "But the Earth doesn't have sides—"

"…and all the way to Saturn if we must," Ahab said, as Chip dodged a kick the captain's wooden leg, "till we're sprinkling breaking over his roasted drumsticks!"

"Aye aye!" the crew cheered—all except one person.

"You dragged us out here to have revenge on a chicken?"

The crew grew silent, and all heads turned to the back of the room. Starbuck sat there in his beanbag chair, holding his smoldering cup of coffee with a stiff hand, staring Ahole down behind his purple shades.

"That's right." Ahole spat back. "Revenge, aye. It's my only purpose on this earth—to kill that monster. Just as you live to see that coffee chain of yours come true, I live ta bring this white feathery beast down. From this one poor hunt, surely Starbuck won't hang back,"

Stud rubbed his temples and muttered, "He's talking in third person again…"

Ahole either didn't hear Stud or chose to ignore him. At some point during his rant, he passed out pint-sized mugs to everyone, and convinced Flask to share his eggnog with the crew. "Drink, ye harpooners! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt this Moby Cock to his death!"

The little room was filled with cries against the white rooster, while Starbuck sipped his coffee nervously. Ahole then retired to his cabin, and the rest of the crew, having lost interesting in Knights and Squires, stayed up until midnight playing drinking games.


	5. Queen Mab and the Sandman

**Chapter 5: Queen Mab and the Sandman Have a Field Day**

* * *

Next morning Stud accosted Flask.

"That was a mindjob of a dream I had last night." Stud said shaking his head.

Flask grunted, his head throbbing with a hangover.

"You wanna hear about it?" Stud asked Flask hopefully.

"No." Flask said rubbing his eyes with one hand.

"See, after the rest of you guys coped out last night, I let Queerqueg have a taste of my pipe, right? And after that Queerqueg invites me to worship his little idol with him, Buda Aqua Man or whatever. It was pretty wild. I was seeing all these tropical fish swimming around the cabin, and like, some of them turned into little Egyptian dudes doing the Pyramid Dance. The colors were really intense. I guess I fell asleep at some point. I had this dream about when the captain kicked me with his wooden leg. So I kick him back, right? And I keep kicking and kicking until my leg just flies right off!"

"You mean like, just soaring-over-the-rainbow flew off?" Flask made a motion with his arm. "Or did it spin or something?"

"It spun a little, yeah. So, I'm hopping up and down on one leg here. And Captain Ahole turns into a frikking pyramid! The little Egypt guys were all dancing around it, and those fish were swimming everywhere. Well I got pissed and kept kicking at the pyramid,"

"With one leg?" Flaks asked.

Stub shrugged. "I don't know man, it's a _dream_. I kick at the pyramid, and while I'm up to that, this merman comes swimming up from the, uh, grass, and comes up to the ship, in slow-mo. He looked like David Hasselhoff, with a clamshell bra and a fish tale. And the merman swims up to me and is all like, 'Hey Stud, whatcho bothering this cat for? You should be honored to be kicked by Captain Ahole. How many navy captains will let you smoke that pipe on the job?' And then I heard the song '_In the Naaaavyyyy!'_ and those little Egyptians started dancing around the pyramid again.

"Now, what do you make of that, Flask?"

Flask stared at his friend, then down to the pipe in Stud's mouth.

"What?" Stud asked. "_What_?"

Flaks finally shook his head, then went down below deck to get some coffee.


	6. Cetology of Poultry

**Chapter 6: Cetology of Poultry**

* * *

Already, we have launched into the vast prairie, our duck's great tires blazing a trail through the tall grass and occasionally over small animals. See, how I'm using the present tense to narrate, now? It's been a long voyage so far, and I have a feeling it won't be over anytime soon. Things have gotten very dull very fast. I need to find some way to spice things up.

The sky turns a brilliant shade of crimson, as the plains echo with the calls of prairie roosters. At this time of day I would normally pop a Riddlin; but wouldn't you know it, I forgot to bring it with me when I boarded the _Peapod._ As I munch on my morning helping of Captain Crunch, trying hard not to think about how much the cereal mascot's hat and uniform resemble that of Captain Ahole (as the Captain is sitting just on the other side of the deck, and doesn't seem to be in any better of a mood than usual), I glance at the dictionary sitting opened on the table next to me. Often, after popping my Ritalin, I'd be burning through that dictionary like it was a Steven King thriller (how else do you think I come up with all these eloquent words I use to narrate this story?) but this morning I can't even get past the word "Aardvark" before my mind begins to wander.

With my attention split between my dictionary, and the call of the prairie roosters off in the distance, I find myself daydreaming about the many variations of poultry, and the odd ways in which we humans have chosen to classify them. (Not one of my more interesting daydreams—even my least creative ones usually involve at least a unicorn or some lasers—but it was five in the morning and I was dead tired, and Starbuck was hogging the coffeepot as usual.)

The most obvious place to start would be with the chicken. A small flightless bird, this animal can be recognized by its beak's waddle and the way it crows to the rising sun. A common misconception about this creature is that everything tastes like it, yet this is not so; if one were to venture into a McDonald's for lunch, as Queerqueg and I did the day the _Peapod_ docked for its voyage, one would find that even their "chicken nuggets" don't taste like chicken. It seems a simple enough creature, with a brain half the size of a chestnut. And yet, our culture is fascinated with the chicken. How many decades have we pondered why this majestic bird chose to make its pilgrimage across the road? How often has the comedian been assisted in his act with a rubber effigy of this beast? How many crooks and lowlifes have paid good money in the dark alleys just to watch two cocks fight to the death? Indeed, though a tiny and rather silly animal, the rooster is a masculine symbol worthy of a Freudian analysis.

But the chicken has many relatives, some of whom have received as much or more attention from the human race—the turkey, the pheasant, the common loon, the swan, ostrich, emu…

* * *

"_Speaking_ of turkeys, Ichy," Toledo called out from the other side of the deck. "Don't bother trying to help us over here or anything, it's a _very_ light bird!"

"Oh," I got up and rushed to help my shipmates load up the wild turkey that Tolledo and Queerqueg had just dragged back from their morning hunt.


	7. Sunrise

**Chapter 7: Sunrise; Or, a Little Writing Experiment**

* * *

_(The captain's cabin; Ahole, sitting alone. [In case the reader is wondering, no, I'm not having another ADD episode; I'm just experimenting with screenplay format. Trust me readers, these scenes would be far more dull if I were to tell them normally.]) _

I remember…I remember when a bowl of Rice Krispies used to sooth, with its _snack_, _crackle_ and _pop_. No more. Nothing brings me any joy, except the thought of seeing that beast destroyed, once and for all. They think me mad, do they? Starbuck does in any case. But they said the same thing about you too, didn't they!

_(As he speaks, the captain takes a few steps towards the portrait on the wall that he is telling this too: his idol, Colonel Sanders.)_

I'll catch that chicken all right. No force on Heaven or Earth will stop me!

* * *

_(Meanwhile, Starbuck leans against the railing on the deck, staring at the sky.)_

No, there's no doubt about it…

_(He shakes his head.) _

…our captain is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

_(Starbuck takes a long sip of his morning coffee.) _

Yep, I'd say we're screwed.


	8. FastFish, LooseFish, RedFish, BlueFish

**Chapter 8: Fast-fish, Loose-fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish**

* * *

It's funny how in weeks of trekking across the prairie and floating down the rivers, one might see not a single bird larger than a woodpecker. And then one day, surprise! You Duck is surrounded by an armada of wild turkeys, pheasants, geese, and every other sort of fowl imaginable. The _Peapod_ was floating down the river, one morning, when we found ourselves surrounded by flocks of these birds, headed down south for the winter. As we shot our rifles and thrust our harpoons left and right, sending both bird feathers and entire birds flying, Captain Ahole was frantic to find the Great White among them.

The captain leaned over the railing with a long telescope, searching the crowds of squawking birds desperately. "Have ye seen any sign of the White Cock, men?" he shouted hoarsely. "Anyone? Any white chickens in that pile—?"

"For Pete's sake Sir, I think we'll know when we come across a rooster the size of a goddamned gorilla!" Dingo shouted, as he Indian-wrestled a turkey to the deck.

This seemed to frustrate the captain to no measure, and he threw his cap to the ground in disgust.

"Cheer up Captain," said Flask. He held a bundle of prairie fowl by the necks and slung them over his shoulder, then made his way to the decks below, like Santa hauling his bag of presents down the chimney. "We'll be having one hell of a barbecue tonight. And what we don't eat will make us rich!"

"You know," Toledo flipped an annoying lock of hair out of his face, and took aim with his harpoon at a nearby turkey, "Shockingly, I'm getting a little tired of chicken."

"I wasn't talking to you," Flask's voice echoed from the lower deck.

"Same here," Queerqueg nodded. "I am done with chicken. I could go for a Big Mac right about now."

"Or Chinese," added Stud.

"Yeah," I tried to join in. "Or, um…"

"A hotdog!" piped little Chip.

The lad was leaning over the railing eagerly, as if he thought he actually saw a sizzling dog in a bun out there on the river, or in the distant fields. Apparently, that was exactly the case. He kept pointing frantically, yelling, "Giant hotdog! There's a giant hotdog out there, on the other side of the river!"

"Chip, get away from that railing!" Stud yelled, between puffs on his pipe. "You fall in, I'm not coming in after you."

Ignoring him, Chip shouted, "It's plain! No gross mustard or anything! Just look you gu—" Chip screamed as an angry goose latched onto his sleeve with its beak, and tugged him down over the railing.

Stud caught Chip just in time, and after a brief tug-of-war with the goose, managed to pull both the boy and the bird onto the deck. After smacking the goose over the head with the butt of his pipe and tossing it into the fast-growing pile we had on the deck, Stud turned angrily to Chip. "I _mean_ it kid! Next time, you are birdfeed!"

Chip nodded, as if he was listening. He wasn't.

Now it happened, as does often happen during a hunt, that some of the animals we shot or harpooned would escape from us, and fly or waddle to a far away part of the river. There were no other boats nearby, but if one squinted, one could see the dots of a few other fishing boats off in the distance, or a hunter or two off in the fields near the shore. I found myself wondering what would happen if one of those other hunters were to come into possession of one of the geese or ducks we had shot. Who rightfully owns the bird, then? I turned it over in my mind, ignoring the symphony of squawks and gobbles as I stabbed and swung my harpoon at the armada of birds. The "fast-fish" philosophy says that the game belongs to whoever "fasts" it first, in which case these birds would have to be returned to the _Peapod_, no matter who found them. ("HEY! Watch where you're swinging that harpoon Itchy!" Toledo yelled somewhere off in the distance.) But, I thought, if we were following the "loose-fish" rule, then any animal was fair game until it was in a pot and being sprinkled with breading.

I realized that this philosophy might apply to more than just hunting. Entire societies have been built on these two world views. ("There's the hotdog again!" Chip yelled, and Stud replied "Shuuut _up!_") Some cultures value a man's right to keep his possessions, regardless of how he came to obtain them. For what is the income of the KFC businessmen and businesswomen who will be receiving that 60% of the poultry we were to catch here on this mission, but a fast-fish? ("Look look, quick! It's going away—_AAAAAH!_" "_CHIP GOD DAMMIT! I'M _NOT _COMING IN AFTER YOU!_") On the other hand, what was that buried treasure to those "Quakers"/pirates who Queerqueg and I met back in chapter 4 but a "loose-fish," that they now own simply because they "found" it? What are all men's minds but fast-fish or loose-fish?

Though, maybe my approach here is too black and white. There must be some people who are on the fence about it. I mean, if we're talking about who has the rights to my pocket thesaurus after I die, then I'm all for the fast-fish philosophy, that it belongs to my family because it's simply their right, no matter what pirates or "Quakers" find it when they're going through my pockets after I've croaked. But, on the other hand, if it's just something like a Nestles Crunch bar that was sitting in my pocket, then it's fair game, because it's probably stale anyway—

I felt my harpoon suddenly being yanked from my hands, and then felt it smack down on the top of my head.

"EARTH TO ICHABOD!" Queerqueg hollered.

"Ichabod here!" I said without thinking, snapping to attention like a soldier.

"Forget about hunting," Queerqueg said, laying my harpoon down next to the wall of the boat. "We caught more dan enough birds for now. What we god to keep our eye out for now is Chip. He gone overboard."

"It's hopeless," Stud said, his voice cracking with emotion. "I told that little sucker I wouldn't come in after him…why didn't he listen…by the time I changed my mind he was gone."

"I see him." Starbuck said calmly, peering through the telescope.

"Oh. Never mind." Stud's eyes dried instantly, and he returned to his pipe.

"Where is he?" The captain demanded.

"This may sound odd," Starbuck said, still holding the telescope to his eye. "But he's sitting on top of a giant hotdog."

The captain stared at his first mate like he'd just grown an extra head. "Giant hotdog? Where?"

"Riiight….there." Starbuck lowered the scope, to face the gigantic vehicle that had come to a stop just next to the _Peapod_.

Our Duck was still in the water, but now floated only feet away from the shore. Parked in front of us was, and remains to this day, the most absurd looking vehicle on the planet. It was a long car, shaped like a massive curved hotdog, sitting in a giant bun on wheels. The license plate on the front bender read BOLONGNA. Along the side of its bun, in red letters, was inscribed Oscar Meyer. Perched on top of the hotdog sat little Chip, holding a real hotdog in each hand and munching away happily.

An older man stuck his head out from the driver's window. "Is this yours?"

So happy we were, by this stroke of luck, that Chip had been saved. But alas, his sanity, it seemed, had not. During his ten or fifteen minutes as a castaway, he had changed from an annoying boy genius who rambled on about the quantum physics of _Loony Toons_ to an annoying boy who rambled something about the different kinds of hotdogs there are, with his mouth full. "Fis' one wif' the sesame seeds on the bun…'at's a Chicago dog! …an' fis one wif the onions…"

The crew of the _Peapod_ welcomed aboard the crew of the Weinermobile, five or six men and women in red work shirts with the Oscar Meyer logo. We swapped stories about our missions over some hotdogs and eggnog. The driver of the Weinermobile, named Captain Boomer (another ex-naval captain, like Ahole), stepped out of the car, and we all stared. Attached to his left shoulder was a left arm. And attached to his right shoulder was…a pole of wood. It looked like Ahole's peg-leg, but instead, I suppose, it was a peg-arm.

I must have blurted this thought out without thinking, because Boomer laughed and said to me, "That's pretty much it, yes! I could've had one of those fancy-schmancy plastic arms, but this here's much cheaper."

"What happened," Flask asked, "You lose a limb to a giant chicken like Captain Ahole?"

Ahole glared at Flask, but Boomer laughed again.

"Well actually, it was a PETA activist with me. We had a disagreement about the ethics of eating meat, and it may've gotten a bit violent. Nibbled my arm right off! But that's in the past, right Ahole?" He smacked Captain Ahole on the back, with his wooden arm. "Besides, I can stick a fork in this baby and roast hotdogs and marsh mellows over a fire."

Boomer seemed suddenly to become sad. When he asked what the matter was, he explained to us how the vehicle was taking its annual tour across the country, but had to stop for a search and rescue mission around the prairie. A team member of their business had been lost a few days before, when the Weinermobile had stopped at a small rural town for the town fair.

"We were roasting weenies over a campfire," Boomer said mournfully. "Bobbie Joe suddenly was accosted by a goose. I guess he wanted the hotdog in her hand. We told her to just let it go, but Bobbie's always been a stubborn lady. That bird took right off into the tall grass with her hotdog in its beak, and Bobbie Joe hanging on to the dog for dear life while screaming obscenities at the goose and flipping it off with her free hand. We've been searching for days. Have you seen any sign at all of a girl in a red Oscar Meyer shirt?"

"No, sorry," Ahole said, in a hurry to get to his own request. "Listen, we're on a mission here too. We be huntin' after the White Rooster, Moby Cock. Have ye seen him?"

Captain Boomer thought it over. "White Rooster?"

He and his crew exchanged glances, and muttered among themselves.

"I think we saw _a_ white rooster, didn't we?" a woman in Boomer's crew said, thoughtfully. "When we were at the fair?"

"Yeah," another one nodded. "The one just roaming around the field, that was scaring all the little kids?"

"Was it a big rooster?" Ahole asked desperately.

"Oh yeah," the woman nodded. "If I'd 'of stood next to him, my head probably wouldn't've reached his waddle!"

"That's him!" Ahole said. "I don't believe it! You've seen Moby Cock! Which way'd he go?"

After debating this some more with his crew, Boomer finally began to answer Ahole's query. "He was headed, if I'm not mistaken, in a general…Ooo that smells good!"

Starbuck was pouring himself some more coffee. "You want some? It's my special blend. Might as well get it now while it's still free, before I open my business and start selling it. This stuff will put Starbuck's Coffee on the map!"

Boomer eagerly accepted a cup of coffee.

Ahole got frustrated. "What about the rooster? Which way did it go?"

"Hmm? Oh! Ah…north-west, I wanna say? Don't quote me on that,"

"How long ago'd you see him?" Ahole demanded.

One of the Oscar Meyer workers interrupted. "Is your name really Starbuck?"

Starbuck nodded. "Yep. I figure it'll make a great name for a coffee chain. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Ahole rolled his eyes, and continued to accost Boomer about Moby Cock.

"Just a coffee chain?" the worker asked Starbuck, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "That name sounds way too epic for just a coffee chain. Sounds more like, I don't know, a comic book hero or something. Or a space pilot on a sci-fi show."

Starbuck rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Lieutenant Starbuck, the greatest starship pilot in the galaxy…smoking a cigar while he blows aliens to kingdom come, good with the ladies…Yeah, I could see that."

Captain Boomer suddenly snorted. "Starbuck, a space pilot? Sounds more like the name for a KFC-type chain if you ask me. Star-buck-buck-buuuck!"

"_Speaking_ of 'buck buck buck,'" Ahole took Boomer by the shoulders and turned the hotdog captain so he was facing him again. "_How_ long ago did you say you saw the White Rooster?"

But Boomer wasn't finished with Starbuck. "If you ask me, Boomer sounds more like a name for a space adventure hero. I can picture a pilot in a little ship, flying out of an explosion. You know, 'Boom!', Boomer!"

Starbuck snorted. "Sure, I could see that."

"Maybe as maybe a sidekick to Captain Starbuck," Chip added helpfully. "One who turns out to be an robot agent in disguise! We should make a role-playing game out of that!" His idea was met with cheers of agreement.

"I think Lt. Starbuck should be a woman," a female member of Boomer's crew mused.

"_What_?" Starbuck exclaimed.

The conversation launched into a long nerd-rage-fuelled argument over whose name would sound better on the galaxy's greatest pilot. It was nearly midnight before Ahole got another word out of anyone about the whereabouts of the Great White. At long last, the Weinermobile departed, returning to their search and rescue mission for Bobbie Joe. The _Peapod_'s crew headed down to our hammocks below deck, prepared to resume our mission of death in the morning. It had been a long day, and I fell asleep faster than a fast loose fish.


	9. Oops

**Chapter 9: I seem to have forgotten to title this chapter. Oops.**

* * *

While I lay in my hammock and dreamed about trying to pilot a starship out of an explosive space battle as Starbuck and Boomer fired viciously at one another, the real Starbuck was already awake and climbing up to the deck of the Duck.

The sun was just beginning to rise. He found Captain Ahole leaning against the railing, looking out at the river and the prairie, munching slowly on a bucket of popcorn chicken.

"Oh, hello Starbuck. You're up early."

"Morning Captain," Starbuck gave his black barrette a shake before putting it back on. "Anything on your mind?"

Ahole popped a small piece of chicken into his mouth, thinking it over. "Starbuck, I've been at this for forty years. Chasing that chicken. Forty years."

If I, Ichabod, had been there I'd have wondered if "forty years" was a coincidence, or if the author had deliberately chosen that number for some kind of Biblical significance. Except, wait, I am the author…now my head's just tied in a knot. Forget I mentioned it. Anyway, Starbuck wasn't thinking about, so his mind was perfectly un-knotted.

"Forty years?" Starbuck propped his arms on the railing, next to Ahole. "I think most of us would've gotten tired of chasing the same bird after that long." As he raised his coffee mug to his lips, he squinted, thinking hard. "Do chickens even live that long?"

Ahole grunted, and shrugged. He offered Starbuck some of his popcorn chicken, as if hoping to change the subject.

"Are you sure this bird's even still alive?" Starbuck asked, dunking a piece of chicken in his coffee. "It's probably keeled over of old age by now. The best's probably been dead and gone for decades, no need for your revenge anymore. Guess we can all go home, eh?" He smiled, and popped the chicken in his mouth; then made a nasty face (word to the wise; chicken and coffee don't mix).

"Home," Ahole said. "I haven't been there in a while. You know I have a wife and son, at home?"

"You do?" Starbuck turned to face Ahole. "Well so do I!"

Ahole blinked, surprised. "I didn't know you hippies were into that whole marriage business."

"Beatniks," Starbuck corrected him. "And yep, some of us are. Not a lot, but some. I met Jackie at a poetry slam at the Starry Night Café. We have a young son now. I sure miss them. You miss your family too, don't you Captain? What's your wife's name?"

"Chomper."

Starbuck stared blankly.

"No, no," Ahole corrected himself. "That's the dog. My wife's name is, ah…"

"Well," Starbuck gave the captain a pat on the back. "What's in a name anyway, right? It's your love that matters. I'm sure you'd give anything to be with your family again, right Sir?"

Ahole nodded. "Aye, to be back home on the farm again…"

Starbuck nodded along. "And tossing a football back and forth with…"

Ahole said it along with him, "…tossing a football back and forth with the dog,"

"…your son," Starbuck finished.

After an awkward pause, Starbuck said, "You can see your family, _and_ Chomper, right now! Turn this Duck around, and let's go home Old Man! That stupid bag of feathers ain't worth your time. You want a quest, let's get our families together at someone's house and have a night of 'Knights & Squires'."

"Aye," Ahole nodded. "That sounds nice. A nice way to celebrate, after we've killed Moby Cock!"

The captain left before Starbuck could get another word in.


	10. The Wild Goosechase

**Chapter 10: The Wild Goose Chase**

* * *

That night the _Peapod _sat parked in the grass, next to the barbed-wire gate of a large game farm. We were finishing up a supper of chicken fajitas that Dingo had made. That was when the captain suddenly thrust his face out fiercely over the railing of the boat, squinting at something in the distance. Ahole dug around his coat until he found his telescope, and peered out between the wires of the fence in front of our vehicle. After giving the captain a moment's glance, the rest of us tucked back into our fajitas. The captain's behavior was nothing new; he thought he spotted the White Cock about three times a day on average. No doubt he'd have us on the chase in a few minutes, and we'd spend the next hour tracking down the white blotch he'd spotted in the distance only to find out it was some farmer's runaway sheep, or a plastic bag.

"Thar she blows!" the Captain exclaimed.

The rest of the crew groaned.

"Man the mast heads!" Ahole hollered. "All hands on deck!"

"We _are_ all on deck," Toledo said.

Unenthused, we began to rise from the little folding table. And that was when Starbuck froze, halfway up from his chair, his hand on his coffee mug.

"Starbuck?" Stud frowned at his friend through his usually glazed eyes. "What's up dude?"

Starbuck was staring at the contents of his mug. Queerqueg leaned over the table, squinting at it. The rest of us all leaned forward to have a look. The black, steaming coffee was still as can be, for a few seconds.

Then it vibrated.

Our eyes stayed glued to the coffee. A second later, it did it again. After the third or fourth ripple, we began to hear the footsteps, echoing faintly, getting rapidly louder. Chip clasped his hands over his mouth, staring up at the fence. The rest of us turned to see. It was so dark that I at first couldn't make much out—just the prickly fence, with a sign dangling from it reading **WARNING: HIGH VOLTAGE ELECTRIC FENCE. **But I guess the farm's power was down, because a moment later I spotted something white and feathery gripping the wire, just above the sign. It was there just long enough to register in my mind as a massive wing, before it pulled away from the fence.

There came several loud snaps, as if a giant were ripping through the wire fence. The monster stomped out into view. No previous description I'd heard had come close, and none I might write here could possibly do it justice (but I'll provide one anyway). Radioactive mutant or feathery dinosaur, it looked like the demon love child of both. Its plumage billowed in the wind, such a brilliant white that it seemed to glow, like a pair of brand new sneakers in a dark room. The beast grinned down at us, with a razor-filled beak. Its eyes, each the size of a football, glowed yellow with black slits for pupils. It ceased its stomping to arch its white head back, and let rip and ear-splitting, screeching, _Cock-a-doodle-dooo! _

"_Grab yer harpoons!_" The captain screamed.

"Harpoons my ass!" Flask reached for his rifle.

"No!" Queerqueg grabbed Flask's arm. "You shoot Big White, you just make 'im mad."

Every man in the company was issued a harpoon.

"Take aim men!" Ahole hollered.

We all raised our harpoons (save Chip, who wisely ran below deck to take shelter under a beanbag chair). And just like that, in a flash of lightning, the chicken was gone.

"Oh, go figure," Toledo held out his hand, as the rain began to pour down.

"Well," Flask chuckled, "At least we now know for a fact that things can't possibly get—"

Sirens blared in the distance. I suddenly noticed that the wind had picked up, while the sky had gone from a dusk purple to a lovely spinach green.

"There!" Ahole pointed with his harpoon. The chicken was a few yards away, its long talons tearing through the grass like it was some monstrous ostrich.

"Are you high?!" Starbuck screamed at the captain. "Don't you hear those sirens? We have to get to a shelter!"

"The chicken's probably headed for shelter," Toledo pointed out. "Following him might be our best bet either way."

We could think of nothing else to do but obey the captain's orders. Queerqueg and I folded up the dinner table, while Flask started up the Duck's engine. We took off down the prairie in the rain, the lightning flashing in a terrifying and very cool strobe-light effect that I thought would look smashing in the climax of an adventure novel. Too bad I was working on a philosophical piece. Or could this tale be both?

"Remember," Ahole shouted over the howling wind, "Whoever catches that bird for me gets that chest full of chocolate money!"

"Oh that's real swell Captain Ahole!" Flask shouted back. "A road trip _and_ candy! You're a real pal!"

We were all one man, united in a single goal. Albeit, a very confused man, who was indecisive as to whether he wanted to kill the chicken for revenge, or for chocolate, or just so he could get his paycheck and go home already, but still, we were one man. We followed the chicken's white form through the grass, entire bushes and all sorts of wildlife crunching beneath our tires. But after another flash of lightning, the bird had vanished once again. The _Peapod_ screeched to a halt at the edge of the river. For a few moments there was no sound but the wind and the tornado sirens, and the water slapping one side of the boat. We stood silently, searching the horizon for the rooster.

"Do you feel brave, men?" Ahole asked, raising his telescope once more.

"I wet myself." Stud replied.

"He must be somewhere," Ahole scanned the dark prairie.

The rain mixed with the howling wind and the sirens.

"Thar—!" Toledo pointed to something large and white, but as it soared over our heads we saw it was just a sheep.

There was a low rumbling that seemed to come from all around the ship. Water shot up from the river like a fountain, followed by a beak. The chicken was playing water games. _How's he do that without lips? _I wondered. Moby Cock rose from the shallows and shook his dripping feathers out, showing everyone onboard with muddy water and small fish. We hit the rooster with everything we had—harpoons, knives, Starbuck's coffee pot, etc. We might as well have been tossing pins at a rhinoceros. The bird stretched its neck out over the deck and snapped at us, like a robin digging for morning worms. We darted across the deck, dodging its beak and its swishing talons. As the winds picked up, we also found ourselves dodging twigs, bushes, and various prairie animals and fish from the river.

"Captain!" Starbuck called, his voice muffled by the otter that had just smacked into his face. He yanked the rodent off and tossed it over his shoulder. "Captain, turn this Duck around!"

Ahole wasn't listening. The bird was in front of him now. They faced each other across the deck, as if each was waiting for the other to draw a pistol. There was even a tumbleweed bouncing between them (courtesy of the twister). Ahole grinned maliciously, and raised his weapon.

"At long last! The world shall be rid of you, foul…fowl!"

The rooster cocked its head, as if pondering the captain's motives.

"From Hell's heart," Ahole cried, "I stab at thee!"

The captain made his move, but froze in mid-thrust. Clutched in his hand was not his harpoon, but a big-mouthed bass from the river. The captain looked back and forth in horror, from the fish in his hand to the angry chicken.

With a final _Cockadoodle-do_o_!_ Moby Cock lunged forward, just as the winds began to raise the _Peapod_ off of the ground.


	11. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

* * *

The drama's done. Why then here does anyone step forth? Because an ending still needs an epilogue, that's why.

I found myself floating in the river, come sunrise. I clung to Aqua-Buda Man like it was a water buoy. I kicked my way towards shore, using the idol as a raft (to this day, I don't know what material that thing was made from that allowed it to float that way). On the horizon, I spotted a familiar sausage cruising across the prairie. The Weinermobile, while on its mission to find its lost child Bobbie Joe, instead picked up another orphan. For reasons I shall never be able to fathom, the fates had selected me to be the sole survivor to tell the tale of the _Peapod _and the White Rooster.

Not that I was the only survivor period, of course. No, the rest of the crew turned up alive, eventually. During the final hour of our battle with Moby Cock, the twister had managed to lift everyone away from the chicken, and drop us a safe distance away. All of us save Captain Ahole, who went down with the ship. Young Chip was found a few months later, in a tent fashioned from the remains of his beanbag chair. He had one hell of a story for his research project. But if you ask him about his experience aboard the _Peapod_ today, he'll change the subject and start talking about hotdogs. Starbuck finally got around to opening up a cafe, and business has been blooming ever since. You ask _him_ about the _Peapod_, and he'll simply say something poetic about man's lack of humility before nature, and leave it at that. Queerqueg and I are still pals. We hang out at my place every Tuesday evening with some other buddies, for our weekly sessions of "Knights & Squires." The rest of the crew went their separate ways.

But, I'm the only survivor of the mission willing to go into detail about it, so for all intended purposes, I'm the only one who literally lived and told the tale.

* * *

"Well?" I asked, "What do you think?"

My ex-boss from the newspaper held my draft in her hand. She flipped through the pages once more.

"Let me get this strait," she said. "You brought me this thing to read, to convince me that you should come _back_ to working as an editor?"

"Oh no, no," I corrected her. "I have no delusions at all of making anything out of this turkey of a novel." Indeed, I had figured that there was no way this thing would ever sell. So I'd found an even better use for it: revenge. "This is just a gift, from ex-employee to ex-employer. For you and your team to practice your editing magic on. Consider it a challenge!"

Five minutes later I was thrown into the lobby. My draft hit me in the back of the head.

Queerqueg, who stood waiting for me in the lobby, helped me up and handed me my papers, and tried to cheer me up.

"So, I take it she didn't find it dat amusing?" Queerqueg asked me.

I chuckled, gathering up the pages from the floor into a pile in my arms. "I guess not. Come on, let's go visit Starbuck. I was up till two last night finishing up that draft, I need some coffee."

As he pushed the door opened for me with his harpoon, Queerqueg nodded down at the pile of papers I clutched. "Don't worry mon," he said with an encouraging smile. "It may be a flop now. But you give it a hundred years, and it might be a classic! Some scholars will dig it up, in a hundred years when your radical insights are mainstream ideas. College kids'll read it in class, space pilots on TV will be named after your characters, they'll make a little cartoon for children with a talking whale…"

I gave a humorous snort. "_Fat chance_."

_**FINIS**_


End file.
